After watching the first couple shows now that MeTV has brought the show back, has anybody else noticed that the picture is cropped on all four sides? Watching the shows and then watching the DVDs again, it's like they zoomed in on the picture just enough to make the credits fill the entire screen with no open space like on the DVDs. It's bad enough that there are trimmed scenes to add in an extra commercial break, but why would they crop the picture?
shareMy provider is showing it in 16:9, the original 35mm aspect ratio. Which is pretty amazing since a lot of shows of that vintage have to use originals made from 4:3 broadcast crops.
And it looks pristine. Quite lovely.
Yes.
It's annoying and seems to be popping up on other channels as well.
There is no way to change it.
It is the evil cable company monopolies controlling what we see.
Of course, the commercials are 'perfectly normal'
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In my market they crop it to 4:3 for all shows so it's black bars on the side, originally they had blue on the side, that looked awfull. They say because that's the way it was originally so now that's how it looks now when set on 16:9. If I try to set it to 4:3 the sides are cropped even more but not the top (everythng is thinner) No other settings work really, Smart View gives a smaller picture and zoom looks horrible. They say it's better because shows broadcast in 16:9 will look better. They are assuming people don't know how to adjust the picture so they are doing it for them. I wrote and told them they should leave it alone and let people adjust their own TV. They don't want people watching a 4:3 show in 16:9 because they feel it's wrong. I told them I would like personal choice and control of my TV.
10/25/2016 Update: It has been nearly full screen this fall season